Those who remember the legacy of the PDP-10, DEC-10 and DEC-20 might use this day, to consider what might have been, and what was, for this DEC product line. In the late 1970's I ran a KA-10, the oldest PDP-10, for a university's Artificial Intelligence department. But it was also used for general timesharing access, and many universities ran TOPS-10 and PDP-10 KA's and later KI's and KL's to service many many terminals. These were not small machines, they filled rooms. But a later KS-10 model was a microprogrammed version of the PDP-10 - it was only the size of a very large refrigerator. Compuserve used KS-10's as network controllers, and ran their own OS on 10's to provide their services. But DEC "choked" on developing 36-bit PDP-10 compatible workstations or desktops (some of those engineers went on to form Data General) and DEC produced the VAX line instead. The old PDP-10's were eventually taken out of commercial service; I don't know if any are running commercially today. It's hard to run one "privately" in a basement or garage, but someone likely fires something up in the winter. If anyone knows directly of a PDP-10 out there today, it would be nice to know of it. Happy DEC-10 day! Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:17 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
If anyone knows directly of a PDP-10 out there today, it would be nice to know of it. Happy DEC-10 day!
The Living Computer Museum has a running one (a DECSYSTEM-2065) as well as an XKL TOAD-2, which is an extended VLSI clone of the KL, running TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 respectively. They are both accessible via the web and you can get an account if you ask nicely: http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org/Online-Systems/Request-a-Login.aspx Dave McGuire also has a KS-10 (functional, as far as I know). - Dave
On 12/10/2015 04:08 PM, David Riley via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
If anyone knows directly of a PDP-10 out there today, it would be nice to know of it. Happy DEC-10 day!
The Living Computer Museum has a running one (a DECSYSTEM-2065) as well as an XKL TOAD-2, which is an extended VLSI clone of the KL, running TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 respectively. They are both accessible via the web and you can get an account if you ask nicely:
http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org/Online-Systems/Request-a-Login.aspx
Dave McGuire also has a KS-10 (functional, as far as I know).
There are three KS-10s here. None are functional, but one had its first power up (well, first in a few decades anyway) a few weeks ago. We hope to have it paired with a disk drive and running by spring of 2016 or so. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
On 12/10/2015 03:17 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
These were not small machines, they filled rooms. But a later KS-10 model was a microprogrammed version of the PDP-10 - it was only the size of a very large refrigerator.
It's worth noting that the KL10 is also microprogrammed. Only the KA and KI were not. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
participants (3)
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Dave McGuire -
David Riley -
Herb Johnson